


Cowboy Love

by bfketh



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canadian!Marco, Dude ranch, Fluff, M/M, Smut, Southern!Jean
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-03
Updated: 2014-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-18 01:17:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1409641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bfketh/pseuds/bfketh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU prompt from Gaydar. Marco is a Canadian vacationing in the US. While there, he meets Jean, and discovers that he definitely has a thing for cowboys and Southern accents.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cowboy Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gaydar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gaydar/gifts).



> Gaydar - "AU where Jean is from the south and he has a southern accent and he works on a ranch and he has a farmer's tan and he's like a horse whispering genius and gives people horseback riding lessons. Marco is vacationing from the coldness of Canada, and decides horseback riding could be fun. I'm sorry this is really just going nowhere but southern Jean and Canadian Marco is something I need and want and I need those two dorks falling in love and maybe fucking in the barn."
> 
> Also, I added in a bit of SugarDaddy!AU and made Marco a hotshot company owner because the SugarDaddy!AUs are my lifesblood at the moment.
> 
> While not exactly a one-shot, this will be short, just 2 or 3 chapters total.
> 
> Note: Temperatures are in Celsius because this is Marco's POV and a Canadian native wouldn't think in Fahrenheit.

“Name?” The tiny, cheerful blonde woman looked up at me with bright blue eyes as her pen hovered over the clipboard she carried.

“Marco Bodt.”

She hummed and made a check on her list, “Okay, Mr. Bodt. If you’ll just join the folks over there by the fence, we'll be starting the show momentarily.”

I nodded and returned her smile before making my way over to the place she’d indicated.

I still wasn't entirely sure how I’d gotten here.

I mean, I knew _how_ I’d gotten here. I’d taken my jet (yes, _my_ jet, stop looking at me like that) from Ottawa to Little Rock, picked up a rental car from Hertz, and drove for about two and a half hours until I’d reached the dude ranch nestled amongst the trees and sandstone bluffs of a small river canyon.

A dude ranch. _Why_ was I at a dude ranch?

Don’t get me wrong, it was beautiful here, although I was so tired when I got in last night that I hadn't really appreciated it at the time. I’d just picked up the key to my cabin at the desk in the lodge, and then I’d practically passed out the moment I collapsed into the bed. Now that I was awake, showered, and fed, I took the opportunity to get a good look at my surroundings while I waited outside by a large paddock with the other new guests for this week’s introduction and orientation to start.

It was just barely April, and the trees were already leafed out with green, early spring flowers blooming in flower beds and planters all around the buildings. It was _warm_ , too, already 12 degrees this early in the morning, and it was supposed to get up past 20. The temperature had still been hovering around 0 when I left Canada, the trees bare, and patches of snow still visible on the ground. So, yeah, the sudden change from a just barely-begun spring back home to a place that seemed like it was rushing into summer was more than welcome. It’s just that the testosterone-fueled fantasy of living like a Wild West cowboy wasn't really my ideal vacation. I was more of lounging around a pool in the Caribbean kind of guy. Especially if that pool also had a cute waiter or two to continuously make sure that the frozen drink at my elbow was never empty for very long.

But as soon as my assistant, Hanji, had found out that my recently departed uncle had left me his horse-breeding farm, they had _insisted_ that I had to take a vacation to a dude ranch owned by one of their friends and conveniently located near my uncle’s farm for “research purposes.” I tried telling them that I couldn't just take off for a week and leave my company to flounder, but we both knew that I very well _could_. Bodt R &D had a more than competent CEO and Board of Directors, and most of the things they needed me for could just as easily be taken care of over the phone or via video conferencing. I didn’t really _need_ to be in the offices every day, but I felt that as President, it was important that I remain approachable and visible to _all_ the staff, not just the higher-ups. Even if Hanji did tease me every morning about overworking myself by asking if I’d started to find grey hairs yet. (And, for the record, no, I have NOT, thank you very much.)

And so, thanks to Hanji, here I was in Arkansas for two weeks without a cute waiter in sight.

I was broken out of my contemplation when the woman who'd greeted me moments before stepped up in front of the fence, followed by a blond man. She introduced herself as the activities director, Christa Lenz, and the man was her assistant, Armin. She started talking about some of the things we could sign up for, like nature walks, zip-lining, and rock climbing, and introduced the two climbing instructors, Reiner and Annie. We also met the two head cooks, Sasha and Connie. Sometime during the week, one of them would accompany us on a dawn horse ride, at the end of which we'd build a fire and prepare what Christa called a "cowboy breakfast."

"And speaking of cowboys," Christa spoke into her portable mike, "I think it's time we brought out the wranglers! We'll start with our junior wranglers, Eren and Mikasa!" A man and woman rode out of the small barn attached to the paddock. They wove their horses in and out of the barrels scattered around the enclosure, starting slowly and working up into a run before slowing down again and riding up to the fence near where Christa and the other staff were standing.

Christa waited for the applause to finish before continuing, "And now our senior wranglers, Ymir and Bertholt!" Two more riders came out. They also rode around the barrels, but they added some tricks to their routine. The man, Bertholt, carried a lasso with him, which he twirled around himself in a complicated pattern. The woman, Ymir, did a couple of her laps while standing on top of her saddle. When they were finished, she got back into the saddle by simply sliding her legs apart and dropping straight down with an audible smack. Next to her, Eren winced, and the evil toothy grin she shot him announced that she'd gotten exactly the reaction she'd been aiming for.

The applause took a little longer to die down this time. When it did, Christa beamed out at us, "Finally, let's hear it for our head wrangler, Mr. Jean Kirschstein!" A man rode out on a powerful looking bay gelding. He was dressed in typical cowboy fashion: faded, tight jeans, leather boots, an unbuttoned green flannel over a fitted white t-shirt, and a black cowboy hat.

The first two riders had been good. The second two had been amazing. Jean Kirschstein blew them all away.

The man and the horse moved as if they were extensions of each other, as if he didn’t even _need_ the reins to communicate his instructions. Indeed, at one point he dropped the reins completely, somehow still guiding the bay through a figure eight around the barrels. Then, still not touching the reins, he brought the horse to a stop, and then he made it retrace the same steps while walking _backwards_. He finished the demonstration by having the bay rear up on its hind legs. It held the pose for several seconds before dropping heavily onto all four feet again. The entire time, Jean sat easily balanced in the saddle, as if the horse was doing nothing but standing rock-steady underneath him.

I realized my mouth was hanging slightly open as the horse walked calmly up to the fence right behind Christa, and I snapped it shut. Jean leaned over in his saddle to take the microphone from her. He winked at her as he straightened up, “Thank you, darlin’.” His voice was soft and low, drawling out the vowels and wrapping around the consonants...and I might have a thing for accents, okay?

Jean then looked out over the crowd and pushed up the brim of his hat, “First of all, how’s about some applause for our Christa?” Once the clapping finished, he continued, “As she said, I’m the head wrangler. Y’all can call me Jean. Me and the other wranglers are the ones who’ll be supervising anything with the horses. Hopefully, you won’t be sick of lookin’ at our ugly mugs by the end of the week.” He smirked at that, and I found myself chuckling along with the rest of the audience. “Now,” he continued, “we’re all one big family here, and family means we help each other out, so don’t be surprised if you see Annie joinin’ us out on the trail or if you see me at the zip-line. Although, if’n you see me in the kitchen, y’all better pray that I’m just there to wash dishes.”

“Please, like we’d let you _near_ the stove,” one of the cooks, Connie, called out from the sideline. “I've seen what you do to beef, Jean, and I’m pretty sure it’s illegal in all fifty states.”

“Bite me, Con. I swear, light spaghetti on fire _one_ time, and ain't no one gonna let you forget it.” He waited for the laughter to stop again before going on, “Anyhow, after this, Christa and Armin’ll be in the lodge, fixin’ to sign you up for this week’s activities. Before that, though, I wanna say the one thing that ain't nobody said to y’all yet.” He tossed the mike back to Christa and tipped his hat toward the crowd, shouting, “Welcome to Rose Ranch!”

With a whoop, he lifted his hat high above his head as the bay reared once again. They were a lot closer to me this time, and although Jean still looked just as at-ease as last time, I could _see_ the muscles of his abdomen and upper legs shift and flex under his clothes as he balanced in the saddle.

As I watched him and the other riders make one last circuit around the paddock before disappearing back into the barn, I decided that maybe pool-side waiters weren't all they were cracked up to be.


End file.
